Take the Money and Run
by Chris Mitchel
Summary: A mounting debt, and one desperate attempt to make the big score to pay it off.


1

Disclaimer: Cowboy Bebop doesn't belong to me

_**Cowboy Bebop: Take the Money and Run**_

_**Chapter 1: Playing With the Queen of Hearts**_

The woman known as Faye Valentine her way down the street, a pair of paper grocery bags cradled in her arms.

Some of the working girls on the other side of the street looked her way, as if to say, 'stay away bitch.'

It had been two years since she had ended up on the bad side of some back water hick town. Jet had sold the Bebop a few months after Spike disappeared and opened a small repair shop back in Ganimede, leaving her on alone.

With no other choice she hit the casinos, cheating them as best she could, but they just seemed to be better. To pay her mounting debt to them, she had to sell the Red Tail. She was at her most desperate when she met Max.

The joker, the thief and the con man he had not only managed to get the casino to cancel her debt, but swindled ten million Woolongs from them in the process. The man had intellect that surpassed anyone she had ever met, yet he seemed to care about nothing more then keeping himself in enough whisky and cigarettes.

The hotel they where staying in was a total dive, the kind of place the hookers always brought clients for a few hours then left. They had been there for a week waiting for some new opportunity to make some quick cash.

Faye worked the keycard from his pocket and ran it through the reader, balancing both bags on one had as she pushed the door open. The smell of stale cigarettes wafted outwards as well as a muffled groan from the figure sprawled out on one of the beds, "Close the door."

"Jesus Max" she muttered, shaking her head as she closed the door, "I was gone for two hours, and you haven't even moved."

His voice was a horse growl of a response, "Movement is over rated."

"Give it a rest" she shot back, dropping the bags on the small table next to the door and flipping the light switch.

The heap on the bed let out another groan and rolled over, "Rest is exactly what I'm trying to do, planning out our next pay day."

Faye dug into one of the bag, pulling out several packs of cigarettes and throwing one at him, "Yeah, and what have you thought up?"

"It's simple my dear" he rolled back over and sat up, his shaggy black bangs hanging in front of his eyes, "we rob a bank."

"How much have you had to drink today?"

He leaned forward, snatching up the pack and tugging it open, "Obviously not enough, I can still form a coherent thought" he replied lighting up, "but it's not like we go in there and hold the place up, what we do. What we do is find a couple of dumb suckers to do it for us and promises them a cut. We get them to do it a few times and once they get a big enough bounty on their heads, WE turn them in a take it."

"I'm not sure if that's the dumbest thing you've ever said, or the smartest."

"It's a lot smarter and a lot more profitable then scamming old folks outta all they got."

"Yeah, but old folks are easy to scam."

Max pushed his hair out of his locking his cool blue eyes on her, "Just think about it for a moment, we pull this off, we get all the money from the banks, plus the bounty, then you can pay off that debt of yours, and we can take what ever is left over, go buy a nice little tropical island for just the two of us to live happily ever after."

Faye couldn't help but smile, it seemed no matter what the situation, Max always found the time to flirt with her, and more often then not she returned it.

"How about you think of a better idea first, something that's going to earn us a lot more money an not involve us paying off someone else to get it, then we can talk about that island."

He leaned back, bracing his back against the faded green wallpaper, drawing his lips into a thin line, narrowing his eyes a bit. She had seen him make this face plenty of times before, it was he thinking face, and that meant in a few hours, they'd be on the way to getting paid.

He reached over to the bed side table, knocking the over flowing ashtray to the floor as he grabbed the new paper from a few days ago, "We can always put those card skills of yours to good use."

Faye took a long pull from the cigarette nestled between her lips, "I tried that, remember, the casino didn't take too kindly to it."

The con man continued to flip through the paper, "Not talking casinos, saw an add in here for a poker tournament, grand prize, three hundred million."

"You have to be kidding me Max, it's bound to be even harder to cheat there then in a casino, just look at the pot."

He slowly lowered the paper, rasing his eyebrows, "Well if you don't think you're up to it, we could always just rob who ever's hosting it."


End file.
